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Hamilton public school to be named after civil rights icon Viola Desmond

Viola Desmond poses for a portrait in 1940. Handout

A Canadian civil rights pioneer and businesswoman is set to have her name don a Hamilton elementary school in the fall.

Viola Desmond, arrested in the ’40s for refusing to leave a whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, N.S., will be the namesake for a new East Hamilton school when it opens in September.

The Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) recently approved the name Viola Desmond Elementary School during a standing committee meeting from suggestions in a couple of surveys involving stakeholder groups. The board said over 80 names were pitched for two new schools.

The other new name is Collegiate Elementary School in Lower Stoney Creek.

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“Our community members and School Naming Advisory Committees presented Trustees with a wonderful selection of names that reflect HWDSB’s vision, mission, and commitments,” HWDSB chair Dawn Danko said in a release.

The new schools are a part of a funding announcement from the provincial government, which doled out $6 million to support the revitalization of the school at the Collegiate site, and $15.5 million for a 682-pupil elementary school beside the current Glen Brae school. 

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Desmond’s arrest in Nova Scotia in 1946 was one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights movement.

An entrepreneur with a beauty products line, she spent hours in jail and had to pay a $20 fine for tax evasion after sitting in main-floor seats reserved for white patrons at the Roseland Film Theatre.

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Desmond would become the new face of Canada’s $10 bill, which entered circulation in November of 2018.

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